Chapter 13
I stand at the kitchen counter with my coffee in front of me, watching the steam curl upward in lazy spirals that evaporate before they reach the cabinets. The morning sun cuts through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting long rectangles of light across the room.
Since the restaurant incident, or more correctly, the tabloid fallout, Devyn won’t speak to me. Two days. Forty-eight hours of silence that feels like a lifetime. I simply did my job.
I grip the countertop until my knuckles turn white, unable to pull the sight of her out of my thoughts.
This is unprofessional. This is exactly the kind of compartmentalization failure that gets people killed, and I’m letting it happen because a thirty-year-old actress with a bratty temperament and an aversion to rules has gotten under my skin.
The sound of bare feet slapping against the stairs pulls me from my thoughts.
I keep my eyes fixed on my coffee, on my muddied reflection in the dark liquid as she enters the room.
She’s wearing those shorts again, the tiny, pale blue ones that barely cover the curve of her ass.
Her tank top is white, thin enough to see the outline of her bra straps when she moves into the light.
A messy bun holds her hair atop her head, strands falling loose around her face.
Without acknowledging me, she moves over to the refrigerator with the deliberate precision of someone navigating a minefield, keeping maximum distance between us while still accessing the necessities.
I hear the door open, the rustle of packaging.
She’s getting her pre-made protein shake from the fridge and a granola bar from the basket in the cabinet.
It’s the same breakfast she has every morning after her workout.
I should clear out of the room and give her the space she clearly wants, but stubbornness roots me to this spot.
It’s the same stubbornness that kept me from apologizing forty-eight hours ago when she slammed her bedroom door.
Or the following afternoon, when she finally emerged because she was hungry.
I was right. I am right. If she would just admit that she was wrong, we could move past this.
She steps toward the coffee pot, and I realize too late that I’ve positioned myself directly in her path.
We both freeze—her hand reaching for the cabinet above my head where the mugs live, my body blocking her access like a wall she can’t scale.
For a moment, neither of us moves. I can smell her coconut shampoo from here, and beneath it, the floral scent of her perfume that has haunted me since I threw her over my shoulder.
She lifts a brow and lets out a heavy exhale that may have well been a huffed “excuse me.”
I lift my arm without a word, grabbing a mug from the cabinet and offering it to her without meeting her eyes.
Our fingers brush when she takes it, her hand warm and soft against my calloused palm.
While it is just the slightest graze of skin on skin, the contact sends electricity up my arm, a jolt that travels straight to my chest, making my pulse thread faster.
I want to grab her wrist and pull her closer, force her to look at me, speak to me, or scream at me if that’s what it takes to break this horrible silence.
She yanks her hand away as though my touch burned her. She pours her coffee with a light shake of her hands before adding exactly two splashes of oat milk and one packet of raw sugar. It’s just one of the many details about Devyn Martin I’ve cataloged with desperate attention.
I push off the counter as she turns to leave, both of us misjudging the other’s trajectory.
My hip brushes against hers as we collide in the narrow space between the island and the counter.
It’s a glancing blow that shouldn’t matter, that should be nothing.
But I feel the give of her flesh against my hardness and the heat of her body through the thin cotton of her shorts, and my breath catches audibly in my throat.
Her eyes snap up to mine, and they’re wide and dark, her pupils blown despite the morning light.
Her lips part on a gasp that she tries to swallow, and I see her throat bob before noticing the pulse throbbing in her neck.
It is fast and frantic, betraying everything she’s trying to hide behind her silence.
We stand there, frozen in the collision, and I realize I’m leaning into her.
My body has renounced my discipline and angled itself toward her warmth.
This close, I can see the faint freckles across her nose that makeup usually hides.
As I count them, my gaze is drawn to the soft purple shadows beneath her eyes.
She hasn’t been sleeping, either. I wonder if it’s nightmares about her stalker or if she lies awake at night thinking of me. Like I am of her.
“Sorry,” she whispers, but she doesn’t move away.
“Don’t be,” I manage, my voice rougher than intended.
She steps back so quickly she nearly stumbles, catching herself on the edge of the island.
The mug in her hand sloshes coffee over the rim, the dark liquid spilling across her fingers.
Without thinking, I reach for her, grabbing her wrist to steady her, my thumb brushing across her knuckles to wipe away the heat.
“You’re going to burn yourself.” My concern has the words sounding gruff.
“I can handle hot coffee,” she snaps, pulling her hand free.
“Can you?” I ask, and even I don’t know whether I’m talking about coffee anymore.
Her eyes flash with anger, beneath it, a desire so brazen a blind man couldn’t miss it.
She purses her lips as her eyes fall to mine.
I watch hers part, her tongue darting out to wet them.
For one suspended moment, I think she might close the distance between us and break this silence with something other than anger.
My mind floods with the thought that she might let me taste the coffee on her tongue and discover whether she tastes as sweet as she smells.
Fuck, Gunnar. Reel it in.
“Don’t,” she says, her voice shaking as she retreats. “Just… don’t.”
She leaves the kitchen with quick, light steps, taking the tension with her.
I stand alone with my cold coffee and my regret, my hand still tingling from touching her.
I don’t know how long I lean against the counter, staring at the space where she stood, but it’s long enough for Jagger to appear in the doorway.
I glance over my shoulder to find him resting on the frame with his arms crossed and a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “Yup,” he says, his voice carrying that particular tone of someone who has witnessed something they shouldn’t have. “This is how it starts.”
I don’t turn around. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing my face, knowing it will betray everything I’m trying to hide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.” He pushes off the doorframe and moves into the kitchen, heading straight for the refrigerator.
He rustles through it, and I hear the crack of the bottle seal as he opens his drink.
“You’ve been standing there for ten minutes, staring at nothing like a lovesick teenager.
And she ran out of here like her ass was on fire.
” He takes a long drink, audibly swallowing. “You two are a mess.”
“There’s nothing happening between Devyn and me,” I lie.
“Gunnar.” His voice changes, dropping the teasing tone for one more serious.
I finally look at him, finding his blue eyes fixed on me with an uncharacteristic intensity.
“I’ve known you for two decades. I’ve seen you go through heartbreak, deployments, and the kind of shit that breaks lesser men. But I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Distracted.” He sets his drink down and moves closer, lowering his voice, even though we’re alone. “She’s gotten to you. You should see the way you look at her when you think nobody’s watching. Like she’s the only thing in the room. Like you’d burn the world down to keep her safe.”
“That’s my job,” I growl, but the words sound hollow even to me. My job is to protect her from the stalker, not to want her. I’m supposed to be a barrier between her and danger, not noticing what she wears and aching for the sweet sound of her voice.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
I clench my jaw, refusing to confirm or deny the accuracy of his statement. Jagger knows me too well. For all the shit he gives me, he has seen me at my worst and my best. And right now, I hate him for the clarity of his observation.
“She’s not speaking to me,” I admit finally. “Hasn’t said more than a handful of words in two days. Not since she blew up the other day.”
“And that bothers you.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“But it does.”
I slam my palm against the counter, the sound echoing through the empty kitchen.
“Yes, it bothers me. It bothers me that she’s walking around this house acting like I don’t exist. It bothers me that she won’t so much as look at me.
Won’t fight with me. That she won’t do anything but give me that cold shoulder and those wounded eyes.
” I drag my hand through my hair, frustrated with my inability to handle this woman.
“I carried her out of that restaurant because she needed to be removed from that situation. I did my job. And she’s punishing me for it. ”
“Or is she punishing you for something else?” Jagger asks quietly.
I look at him, confused, and he sighs, running a hand through his own dark hair.
“Gunnar, you didn’t just carry her out of that restaurant. You manhandled her. You threw her over your shoulder like she was property. Like she was your property. You want her to talk to you? Stop being so fucking stubborn and admit that maybe—just maybe—you didn’t handle it perfectly.”
I stare at him, hating that he’s right. About all of it. “I don’t know how to do this,” I confess, the words barely above a whisper.
“Do what?”
“Want someone I shouldn’t. Need them to…” I trail off, unable to finish the thought and acknowledge how deep this goes.
“Yeah,” he says, his expression softening.
“You do. You just don’t want to admit it because it scares the hell out of you.
” He moves toward the door to the terrace, pausing to clap a hand on my shoulder, his cocky grin sliding back into place.
“The silver at your temples finally paid off, old man. Turns out, the whole brooding DILF thing really works.”
He leaves me alone with my now-cold coffee and my colder realizations. Devyn Martin is slowly unraveling everything I thought I knew about control and discipline, unknowingly tearing down the walls I’ve built to keep the world at bay.